Starship
by Ardvari
Summary: Third installment of the Noelle Series. Noelle leaves the planet while Grissom and Sara think about ballet dancers and astronauts...


**A/N: **Thanks to princessklutz04 for the beta! This is for Nina, who called me to remind me it was my birthday. :)

**Outer Space**

I looked out across the playground at the barbecue that had been set up for the daycare kids and their parents. Grissom sat beside it and collected money out of small, grubby hands. I wasn't exactly sure who had goaded him into that job and how whoever it had been had succeeded but I was glad he was helping out.

Noelle came bounding over to his side and sat down next to him. She always reminded me of a sip of water going 'round a bend. Just a tad too unbalanced. I smiled to myself because I thought Grissom must've been just like her.

She had sat down a tad too close to him, making it hard for him to reach over the table but he didn't complain. He never complained when Noelle was just a tad too close.

Breathing hard and swinging her legs, she surveyed the playground and when she spotted me, she waved. I waved back but didn't want to go over and abandon my spot over by the swing set. I liked watching them.

Noelle must have told Grissom where I was because when the steady flow of tiny children wanting hot dogs slowed down, he looked up and winked. Noelle was talking to him importantly, her ponytail bobbing when she nodded and laughed at something he replied to her.

She pointed at someone over by the slide and with a quick, hasty kiss on Grissom's cheek, she ran over to her best friend Christa. The two of them had cleaned most of Noelle's shoes with body lotion and baby powder last week, wrecking both the shoes and the rug in Noelle's room.

I imagined they would get into a lot more trouble before they reached puberty and after that we'd _really_ be in trouble.

Thinking about Noelle growing up so fast always made me sentimental. I could still remember the first Christmas with her, singing _Silent Night_ to that tiny little baby in front of the Christmas tree. I remember looking at her and being so scared that something might happen to her.

Cleaning her shoes with lotion didn't seem so bad as compared to all the other things she might do when she's older. I just hoped she'd be smart about things. Not get into drugs.

I was so lost in thought I didn't even notice Grissom walking up to me and leaning against the swing set.

"Penny for them." he said softly and smiled as I reluctantly turned my eyes away from our daughter.

"She's growing up so fast." I answered wistfully.

"Turning six in a couple of weeks." he added and watched as Noelle and Christa made their way to the sandbox hand in hand.

Sometimes I wondered what it would be like having another child. We'd never really talked about it because Noelle hadn't exactly been planned. Noelle was what they so coolly described as an accident, a glitch in the birth control I had been taking.

The best accident that had ever happened to us.

I smiled and turned fully towards Grissom.

"Remember how _scared_ we were when we found out we were going to have her?"

He chuckled and I could see he was thinking back on the day I had been pacing the living room, telling him that I just wouldn't be able to do this. Not at all. I wasn't cut out to be a mother, mostly because my own childhood had been one heck of a disaster.

Surprisingly, he had been calm. I would have imagined him to run out of the room but- he was calm. Maybe a little nervous but happy overall. He'd said something about fate and that had been that. We went and bought a crib and picked out wallpaper with pink and blue butterflies (of course) and started fantasizing about what it would be like, having a kid.

"Didn't turn out so bad though." He quipped and we both looked over at Noelle.

She and Christa were digging in the sand, probably building another space ship (they had found a picture of one in one of my Physics magazines and had been fascinated). I'd had to tell them about how you could float in space and that had done it. They wanted to be astronauts, just because of the floating.

I took a step closer to Grissom and leaned against him, my arms wrapping loosely around his waist.

"Nah, it turned out great." I smiled into his shirt and wondered if we would be this happy without Noelle and her crazy ideas, ideas that reminded us that life wasn't always about death and destruction. Life was about the roses that "smelled like they were happy" and clouds that looked like horses and sheep and umbrellas.

Noelle came running over and pulled at Grissom's shirt impatiently.

"Daddy, what's a good name for a spaceship? We're launching ours but it needs a name so we can tell Houston." Noelle was fascinated with Houston, believing that Houston was a man in a tower somewhere who navigated space travel. I hadn't had the heart to tell her that Houston was a city and had even told Nick to keep his mouth shut.

"Call it Lily." he suggested because that was still her favorite name and when she had tea parties with Bruno (who was such a good dog for putting up with her the way he did), his name was Lily as well and if he was really lucky, he got a sparkly pink collar so he looked pretty.

Noelle didn't look happy with the name, her hazel eyes narrowing thoughtfully.

"How about Moonbeam?" I asked and she smiled.

"I like Moonbeam!" she answered and motioned for us to lean down so she could kiss us good-bye. After all, a flight through space might take a couple of years. We played along and Grissom put his arm around me as we watched her run back to the sandy spaceship and Christa, who was already sitting in her designated spot.

They waved to us before concentrating really hard and then pointing out sights in space to each other. I wished with all my heart to be five again and have the imagination they had. I wished I could see a spotted alien in a fire hydrant across the street.

"Moonbeam, eh? Did you ever want to be an astronaut?" Grissom teased, making me giggle.

"Not really. I really wanted to be a ballet dancer. Hard to believe, I know. But I had a thing for the outfits." I pursed my lips, trying to suppress a smile when he smirked at me.

"Well, now that we have a little astronaut, maybe we should… think about a little ballet dancer…"

I didn't move for a moment, unsure if I'd heard right and thought back again to that day I had freaked out about being pregnant, before I turned to him.

"You're kidding, right?" I asked, still not sure if I _wanted_ another child. A planned one, not one that just kinda… snuck up on us like a shower in spring.

"I don't kid." he said seriously and shrugged. I brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes and looked over at the girls (who apparently had some sort of engine trouble) as I tried to decipher if the butterflies in my stomach were doing a happy dance or freaking out.

I decided that having another child was scary and thrilling and… great. Actually _planning_ everything this time. The situation seemed slightly absurd, talking about having another child while we watched the first one flailing her arms because her imaginary spaceship was on its last legs.

"I didn't think you'd… are you sure? Really sure?" I asked and searched Grissom's face to make absolutely sure he hadn't just blurted this out in the spur of the moment. He was known to… blurt things out.

"I'm pretty sure." He nodded emphatically and raised an eyebrow at me. I bit my lip and rocked back on my heels and back onto my toes before I leaned up to kiss him.

"It's a plan, then." I said, excitement welling up deep inside me. I liked plans.

Noelle came over to us, sand everywhere. She always managed to get sand absolutely _everywhere_ and I secretly wondered how she managed that.

"Moonbeam crashed." she explained importantly and wiped her hands on her jeans.

"Aw, darn." Grissom said, winking at me as he promised her to help build a spaceship out of Legos tomorrow.


End file.
